Review: Beyond Civilization–Humanity’s Next Great Adventure
5 Star, Change & Innovation, Civil Society, Culture, DVD - Light, Future, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution
Pointer to Other Relevant Works, April 13, 2008
Daniel Quinn
I considered this book, and found the reviews so very informative, as well as negative on what the “next steps” should be, that I enter this contribution not as a review of the book, but as a pointer to other books that go beyond this book. Epoch B Swarm B Leadership, Transpartisanship, and bottom-up Citizen Wisdom Councils is what comes after civilization deconstructs and the nation-state model is finally devolved to tighter regional alliances and the end of predatory immoral capitalism (in favor of moral green capitalism).
Here are ten books I have read and reviewed that I believe readers and admirers of this author will find most beneficial:
The leadership of civilization building: Administrative and civilization theory, symbolic dialogue, and citizen skills for the 21st century
How to Change the World: Social Entrepreneurs and the Power of New Ideas, Updated Edition
The Handbook of Large Group Methods: Creating Systemic Change in Organizations and Communities (Jossey-Bass Business & Management)
The Change Handbook: The Definitive Resource on Today's Best Methods for Engaging Whole Systems
Society's Breakthrough!: Releasing Essential Wisdom and Virtue in All the People
The Tao of Democracy: Using Co-Intelligence to Create a World That Works for All
Finding Our Way: Leadership for an Uncertain Time
The World Cafe: Shaping Our Futures Through Conversations That Matter
Collective Intelligence: Creating a Prosperous World at Peace
My thanks again to the reviewers. I buy and read a great many books, and the reviews help me make tough choices within my limit of five books a week. I hope the links above are considered helpful.
Review: The Second World–Empires and Influence in the New Global Order
5 Star, Change & Innovation, Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Future, Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class 
Tour of the world in concise but precise terms,March 30, 2008
Parag Khanna
This is an extraordinary book, a tour of the “real” world where the future is being defined. While I respect the reviewer's that have difficulty with inaccuracies or inconsistencies, on balance, in all of my reading as reviewed on Amazon, I would rate this one of the top 20 books, perhaps even one of the top 10 (let's go with that, making it one of the top 10 on reality, while my other “top ten” would encompass world changing, social entrepreneurship, the Tao of democracy and other solution-oriented writings).
My notes must of necessity be cryptic. I will start with the bottom line and urge the Amazon reader to take my notes as a strong incentive to buy and read the book cover to cover.
Bottom line: US has screwed up big time, and is taking third place to China's achievement of globalization on its terms, using consultation, incentives, and efficient/effective agreements to propel itself past Europe, which has consensus model that has displaced the US but cannot compete with China's global juggernaut. The US is gently tarred with confusing “security” for prosperity or legitimacy, with preferring single-party strong-arm partners, and with being generally clumsy, inept, ignorant, and hence losing on all fronts.
+ Second World is internally divided between rich and poor sectors
+ Second World is the tipping point domain that will determine the tri-polar (China, Europe, US) outcome
+ Author covers five regions 1) east of Europe including Russia and Turkey; 2) Central Asia; 3) South America with little attention to Caribbean; 4) Middle East; and 5) Asia and the 4 Chinas.
Early on the author states that the Americas are terribly ignorant of both the old and new geography, and I would agree while emphasizing that the “expert” advisors to Presidential candidates are themselves as ignorant (or biased)–from those that are state-centric to those that are ideologically unbalanced to those that believe their ego and social network are sufficient in and of themselves. Not a single one of them knows how to lead a nation-wide conversation, much less a regional or international conversation–they are the “walking dead” of the pyramidal era, and any contender that listens to them and allows them to exclude the iconoclasts and the avant guarde is destined to be neutered, so to speak, before their time.
+ According to the author, America is now viewed as destabilize, in an era when the Second World judges legitimacy on the basis of proven effectiveness (one could also add: sustained effectiveness, not a US forte). Further on the author drives this point home by saying that success trumps ideology, and across the Second World, democracy is not considered practical (nor credible as a US claim for access).
+ European Union is the standard bearer for both technology and regulation (another book I have reviewed pointed out that USA has become a “dumping ground” for products from China Europe will not admit–thank you, Dick Cheney).
+ USA, EU, and China have no common culture, and (combined with the distinct cultures of the other four emergent regions), this is cause for concern about future misunderstandings and over-reactions.
+ The world is demographically blended and so increasingly inter-dependent that the day of major war is indeed likely to be a thing of the past.
+ In the early focus on Europe, the author quotes a European to the effect that Europe is expanding, each time getting poorer, but each time delivering and buying priceless stability. This is one reason why Eastern Europe is skyrocketing and at the same time, displacing the USA as a source for many exports to Europe.
+ He tells us that Europe is confident, incentivizes its partners, has a generation in charge that is transcendent, and is disdainful of the US for its ineptness.
+ Russia is described as a “Siberian Saudi Arabia” but with an insecure nuclear arsenal. ¾ of the wealth is centered in (controlled from) Moscow while 2/3 of Russians are living at the poverty line or below.
+ Russia is being emptied of Russians as they vote with their feet and move west, at the same time that Chinese are moving north into Siberia, which global warming is making more hospitable.
+ In the Balkans instability threatens Europe, but European agro-technology is making a huge difference, as is the European penchant to support multiple parties rather than any single dictator. Still, “lurking tribalization” is of concern.
+ Turkey is a key player in saving the Balkans, and in the author's view, is powerful, democratic, secular, and Muslim, and also responsible for ten times more trade with Europe than with the US.
+ Black Sea is creating its own unified region.
+ Georgia does not have a single decent road.
+ Caucasian Corridor is a Balkans waiting to happen.
+ While Brussels is central, London, Ankara, and Moscow each have their own key role in the region.
+ Central Asia benefits from the re-creation of the Silk Road for East-West trade, while also suffering from being the “laboratory” for imperial excess seeking to play the Great Game (not something the US is at all qualified to “play”)
+ The author points out Central Asia is at the intersection of Russia, China, Europe, and the US, to which I would add Iran as well.
+ Mongolia is militarily aligned with the US (and from my own knowledge, has one of the finer peace keeping training programs as well as an ideal pre-Afghanistan mobilization training environment)
+ According to the author, China, in sharp contrast to the US and Russia, is making huge gains in Central Asia because of “swift settlement” of all outstanding border issues, its promotion of shared development strategies, its “massive charm offensive” and its role as a “consultative leader,” and its being the “standard bearer for business practices” which is code for no-strings attached loans nearing one billion. The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) is now called the “NATO of the East.” China is winning Central Asia through strategy, trade, and co-development. [See also my online memorandum “Chinese Irregular Warfare oss.net”]
+ Kazakhstan has energy and retained its own language, shows promise.
+ Kyrgystan a mess, Tajikistan a bridge for revival of Sino-Iranian trade routes.
+ Uzbeckistan and Tajikistan are Islamic targets.
+ American failure to reconstruct Afghanistan has left Karzai neutered, perhaps soon to go.
+ South America has been suffocated by US hegemony, and US sponsorship of 30 years of “Dirty War” pitting authoritarian rightists against [liberation theology and populist] leftists.
+ Unlike other regions, South America simply wants US to live up to its rhetoric about free trade and democratization, “without exceptions.”
+ US threatened by crime, drugs, migration from the South, does not seem to appreciate the value of South American integration and self-sufficiency in energy and food sectors.
+ Four Mexico's–northern, central breadbasket, indigenous destitute isthmus, and very poor Mayan Yucatan.
+ Chaves in Venezuela is a spendthrift and has quadrupled Venezuela's debt, but he actually has a serious strategy that includes China to offset US, a pipeline to Argentina, state to state barter of commodities, modernizing Caribbean energy sector, and welcoming Iran and Europe.
+ Colombia is the key to the future of the region, unique for having Pacific and Caribbean coasts while also being the entry point for a Pan-American highway of greater potential.
+ US is losing the drug war and screwing up the alternatives of trade and economic accelerators.
+ Brazil is the USA of South America, and has formed a trade axis with China. It is multiracial, with the largest populations of Arabs outside Nigeria, Lebanese outside Lebanon, Italians and Japanese outside their own countries. Crime is the wild card, the Achilles' heel.
+ Argentina is a basket case (the author does not tell us that Argentine is also being seduced by Chinese men and is likely to be majority Chinese by 2025).
+ Chile, despite US mis-deeds, benefited from German farmers and is today's success story, focused on stability, pragmatism, and profit.
+ Arabs are redefining themselves in the Middle East in a manner not seen in the past 1000 years. They remain central, and the author anticipates Arab economics will triumph over Islamic radicalism. Later in the book he concludes that the Arabic opinion and sense of self is solidifying.
+ North Africa is Europe's southern shore, and part of the Mediterranean culture, but suffers a massive disconnect between unemployable poorly educated youth and jobs without qualified applicants.
+ Libya (I learn for the first time) is a huge success, with major gains in education, advancement of women, and per capita income over $7000 a year.
+ Egypt as the Arab cornerstone and the difficult blend of Arabia and Islam. This government, the author tells us , “provides neither moral leadership nor public services” and therefore is “a perfect target for Islamist groups well-equipped to provide both.” He believes an Iranian-style revolution is possible.
+ The Mashreq–Israel, Palestine, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon, he sums up as “Iranian interference, Syrian intransigence, Lebanese weakness, Israeli aggression, and Palestinian desperation.” I was surprised to not see “American idiocy” in there, since my taxpayer dollars are funding the Israeli genocide against the Palestinians.
+ He anticipates the death of Iraq and the emergence of Kurdistan, and here I quote two gifted turns of phrase: “Wars are like a geopolitical reset button.” and “The Iraq war exposed the United States as a superpower whose intelligence does not match its aspirations.” As an intelligence professional, I must clarify this: both the Army leadership and the CIA professionals, that is to say, Charlie Allen, got it exactly right–no weapons of mass destruction, kept the cook books, bluffing for regional sake. It was George Tenet who parked his integrity on the same shelf as Colin Powell and Mike Hayden, who allowed Dick Cheney to hijack the US Government and send the US military to war on the basis of 935 explicitly documented lies to the public and Congress and the UN, and 25 explicitly documented high crimes and misdemeanors.
+ Iran does not get enough coverage, but that is insufficient to undermine my very high regard for this book.
+ Gulf will provide 40% of the energy for the foreseeable future. Oil windfalls were mis-directed by the leaders, who funded luxuries for themselves, and militaries, rather than seeing to the public good.
+ Wahhabist reckoning is coming–they teach selected elements of the Koran by rote, not Islam. However, they correctly evaluate the Saudi Royals as the near enemy and the USA as the far enemy, joined at the hip.
+ United Arab Emirates is where Las Vegas meets Singapore, with Dubai as the icon. He notes with studied understatement that Chinese goods and Chinese whores are half price to any competing goods or whores, and the former “designed to disintegrate.”
+ Malaysia and Indonesia have huge Chinese Diasporas. Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam not as well covered as I would have liked, especially Vietnam which is totally independent of China.
+ There are four Chinas–the southeast quadrant with Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Taiwan (I was surprised to see no mention of Macau, through which China is aggressively wooing all former Portuguese colonies including Brazil); the Beijing centered northeast, and the far edge of Tibet and Xinjiang, which the author tells us earlier in the book are as vital to China as the Rockies and West of the Rockies are to the US.
+ He says that China is “blending” Asia, and that from Malaysia and elsewhere there is broad recognition that a form of Chinese “Monroe Doctrine” is being established. He specifically points out that US offers of “security” are losing out to European offers of “capacity” that nurture prosperity (as well as Chinese offers of co-development).
+ I grew up in Singapore, finishing high school there, and I am in total agreement with the author's admiration for Lee Kuan Yew and the manner in which communitarian trumps democratic when it comes to producing more stability and prosperity. I recently learned from my step-mother, who just left Singapore after decades of being the leader of English education for the government (and Chinese teachers) that one cannot run for Parliament in Singapore without first earning a Masters in Business Administration.
+ Uniquely, Asians want to stay in Asia while visiting everywhere else.
+ He plays down India and I completely disagree with his dismissal of them. India has made more progress than China when one considers the totally divergent and conflictive situations they must handle across tribes, religions, classes, and environmental challenges.
In his conclusion, the author suggests that a tri-polar world now exists, but one read what can only be a list of indicators of USA suicidal tendencies: lousy education, no investment in technology, as many gang members as there are policemen (roughly 750,000 he tells us). The USA can learn to co-exist and co-develop with the rest of the world, and abandon its military “big stick” paradigm, or it can be relegated to third place forever, and gradually go down even further.
I am very worried. I see no one that has strategic perspective, a holistic understanding of the ten threats and twelve policies, nor an appreciation of the urgency of creating an alternative development model for Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Iran, Russia, and Venezuela, among others.
See also:
A More Secure World: Our Shared Responsibility–Report of the Secretary-General's High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change
High Noon 20 Global Problems, 20 Years to Solve Them
The Unconquerable World: Power, Nonviolence, and the Will of the People
The Fifty-Year Wound: How America's Cold War Victory Has Shaped Our World
War is a Racket: The Antiwar Classic by America's Most Decorated Soldier
The leadership of civilization building: Administrative and civilization theory, symbolic dialogue, and citizen skills for the 21st century
How to Change the World: Social Entrepreneurs and the Power of New Ideas, Updated Edition
Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization, Third Edition
The Future of Life
Collective Intelligence: Creating a Prosperous World at Peace
Review: The Future of the Internet–And How to Stop It
5 Star, Future, Information Society, Information Technology
Superb, Engrossing, Useful, Relevant, Alarming, March 25, 2008
Jonathan Zittrain
I ordered this book on the strength of the title, and on receiving it, discovered that the author is the Professor of Internet Governance and Regulation at Oxford University, and co-founder of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at the Harvard Law School (they hate it when we just say “Harvard”–must be a culture thing). So right off I know this is at least as serious a book as I hoped for.
The book is instructive without being tedious, alarming without being hysterical. It is balanced, informed, and most relevant to all of us.
The entire book focuses on the transformation of the Internet from one in which the innovation could be done at the edges, with generative innovation that built on the provided software or hardware, to one in which we are allowed to buy tethered appliances like iPhone or X-Box that are “locked down.”
Even PCs are being locked down today, and with this and other examples the author has my total attention.
He suggests that the end point matters, and that the confrontation between flexibility and openness, versus security and perfect reliability (and later, perfect enforcement) is one that requires more creative thinking rather than knee jerk mandates one way or the other.
He notes that historically IBM tried to bundle everything, and they were forced by anti-trust to unbundle, just as AT&T was, as Microsoft was, and as Google will be if the USG Government ever gets either honest or informed–either will do. Look for my book review of “Google 2.0: The Calculating Predator” to understand this suprnational unsupervised threat to multiple sectors, never mind privacy and copyright.
In a nutshell, he frames the challenge as that of modularity within which the end-user can innovate, versus walled gardens that are locked down.
In passing the author vindicates both Morris, and the manner in which justice was applied. Morris intended to count the computers on the Internet, and screwed up the code. The judge intended to punish him but not end his promising career. All good.
The author discusses what Vint Cerf and others have, the degree to which bots have taken over tens of millions of computers, using broadband connections left on at all times to create a subrosa network that does evil.
On page 63, three important principles from the author on generativity:
1. Our information technology ecosystem functions best with generative technology (i.e. NOT with locked down appliances hard-wired to a center)
2. Generativity instigates a pattern both within and beyond the technological layers of the information technology ecosystem (i.e. content collaboration and social collaboration and value-added)
3. Proponents of generative systems ignore the drawbacks attendant to generativity success at their peril.
This is followed by a great discussion of features of a generative system as they would be hoped for by the author:
– Leverage
– Adaptability
– Base of mastery
– Accessibility
– Transferability
He cites benefits of a generative system as including:
– Non-profit social innovation
– Disruptive innovation
– Broad participation
– Generative systems from generative building blocks
– Recursion (of value) to content and then to society
The scary chapter in the book–the author is elegant but one needs little help to imagine the worst–discusses how tethered appliances enable “perfect enforcement” to include GPS devices turned on remotely to serve as audio surveillance on demand, and so on.
Turning to solutions, the author distinguishes between flexibility needed at the content level (he is laudatory about Wikipedia) and the technology layer. He discusses one possible solution, a Green-Red split system in which the Green system is locked down and totally reliable, and the Red system is open to innovation but also treated with caution.
He calls for better easier security tools for group and individual use, but as one who could never ever find a coder willing to document their code, and as one completely fed up with the pig code that comes out of Microsoft and Norton–pig in the sense of way too much crap and way too big a footprint–I fear that only an open source conversion experience will do. I note with interest a chart that shows that Sun Open Systems are the LAST to plug security holes, Not good.
The author suggests a “least harm” protocol.
He calls for a very large conversation among end-users, coders, manufacturers, regulators, and so on, and what I hear him saying is that the “system of systems” is on auto-pilot, the government is out of brakes (or brains, I would add), and if we don't all do a collective “STOP, We Want to Discuss This,” we are destined to suffer the same fate as the sheep at Virginia Polytechnic who stood still while a moron killed 20+ of them–stood still while he reloaded. Had the sheep “rushed and crushed,” no more than one or at most two would have died. I am harsh here, because information technology can either be our cage or our liberation, and the author is very well qualified to present the case for concern.
I learn for the first time on page 174 of the National Science Foundation's FIND initiative, and that alone is worth the price of the book.
Turning to protections, the author discusses data portability, network neutrality and generativity (I can assure all readers, Google is neither neutral nor generative), Application Program Interface (API) neutrality; privacy, individual liability versus technical mandates, and collective character (digital shunning combined with reputation bankruptcy and a clean sheet fresh start).
He discusses privacy 2.0 and problems such as code, patent, and content thickets. I like very much his reminding us that the Constitution provides for anonymity to encourage unpopular opinions. He naturally discusses data genealogy (what I call data provenance, like an art work), and reputation.
In passing, I love the brutal critique by Gene Spaford of the $100 laptop. He likens its projected impact–exposing millions to the bright side while not fixing their poverty, water, and disease–to subsidizing pet rats for every household just prior to the Black Death plague. My friend Lee Felsenstein is an equally virulent opponent of the $100 laptop, for different reasons. Me personally, I think the cell phone (but not the iPhone) is the only way to educate 5 billion people fast and with day to day relevance to their needs.
I put the book down feeling pensive, and wondering why CISCO CEO John Chambers, who has been asked in writing via Federal Express three times, continues to refuse to create a router-server that is both recyclable (or even better, updatable remotely without having to flip boxes) and that will provide data at rest encryption and Application Oriented Network (AON) features at the point of creation–in other words, every creator can control the privacy, content routing, access, sharing, and so on, and by implementing something like Grub Search on the same box, we can put paid to programmable search engines patented by Google that will only show you what the highest bidder has paid to “allow” you to see, and to the Googleplex, which “confiscates” everything it touches and then claims to “own” it–including your medical records.
This is a great and important book, if you care about the global role of the Internet is creating wealth and consequently peace.
Ten other books that come to mind as equally important:
The Future of Ideas: The Fate of the Commons in a Connected World
Voltaire's Bastards: The Dictatorship of Reason in the West
Manufacturing Consent
Fog Facts: Searching for Truth in the Land of Spin
Managing Privacy: Information Technology and Corporate America
Who Owns Information?
Silicon Snake Oil: Second Thoughts on the Information Highway
In the Absence of the Sacred: The Failure of Technology and the Survival of the Indian Nations
The Tao of Democracy: Using Co-Intelligence to Create a World That Works for All
Collective Intelligence: Creating a Prosperous World at Peace
My bottom line: as we all press toward localized resilience in community, I for one would be happy to shun all tethered appliances and rely solely on collective human intelligence in community. I really like the work of Naomi Klein (No Log, Disaster Capitalism) and Paul Hawken (Blessed Unrest, Natural Capital, Ecology of Commerce). We are all long overdue for a massive boycott of all that is not in our interest, and we can start by evaluating the true costs of fuel, long-distance food and clothing, and perverted uses of water that we are running out of.
Peace.
Review: State of the Unions–How Labor Can Strengthen the Middle Class, Improve Our Economy, and Regain Political Influence
5 Star, Capitalism (Good & Bad), Civil Society, Democracy, Future
Possibly the Most Important Book to America's Future, March 23, 2008
Philip Dine
I chanced upon this book at an airport bookstore, and after a long flight and several more hours at home with it, have put it down with an enormous sense of the righteous and epochal importance of this work. I have not trimmed my review to 1000 words because of the importance of this book, and the removal of the 1000 word limit from Amazon's current guidelines. This is IMPORTANT!
In the introduction to the book, Congressman Gephardt laments that union membership is down to 8% from 35%, for two reasons: good employers whose workers do not feel the need to unionize, and intimidation by bad employers who will stop at nothing to squelch any attempt to unionize.
He emphasizes the direct relationship between the health of the unions and the health of America's economy and its linch-pin middle class.
He is most provocative in suggesting that unions can and should displace employers as the providers of life-long benefits.
He concludes the introduction by lamenting the reality that employers pursue micro-profits instead of macro-benefits, and points out that in the absence of rules of law and fair trade, globalization will inevitably push the USA to labor conditions akin to those of the lowest common denominator–a return to sweatshops, no benefits, and despair across the land.
The book itself is phenomenal. The author, a very rare journalist who not only cares about labor issues but has also won the trust of labor leaders, has written what is in my mind the single most important book relevant to how every American should perceive the 2008 election. No candidate is serious about labor at this time. Our job is to change that, and to help labor, notably the AFL-CIO and the International Association of Fire Fighters (IAFF), change that by putting labor issues in the forefront of the economic discussion. John McCain, featured in the DVD Why We Fight, condones the impoverishment of regions to stimulate enlistments in the military-industrial complex of which he is a tacit leader. Hillary Clinton does not now and never will understand the working class–she set the standard for “bitch in residence” in the White House, according to my secret service colleagues, and she is as elitist and arrogant as it gets. Barack Obama remains surrounded by advisors who do not have a clue about Generation Y, collective intelligence, or how to create a holistic strategy that can address the ten threats with the twelve policies while helping the eight challengers avoid our self-induced The Fifty-Year Wound: How America's Cold War Victory Has Shaped Our World, the loss of the The Battle for the Soul of Capitalism and the rise of the two political parties that are a form of organized crime and Running On Empty: How The Democratic and Republican Parties Are Bankrupting Our Future and What Americans Can Do About It. It is in this context that I am simply blown away by extremely balanced, well-told, important review by a journalist uniquely qualified to provide us with a book-length review of where labor has failed, where labor shows promise, and how labor is America's bottom line: as he concludes the book, Labor defines who we are as a people.
+ Labor has unraveled, which harms America and its economy because Labor is historically the only force apart from honest religions and selected civil society elements that truly represents the moral imperatives of both social value and economic value. Decades of progress have been rolled back by Bush I, Clinton, and Bush II. Clinton in particular sold out Labor with NAFTA and the ease with which he allowed corporations to export entire programs to sweatshop countries at the same time that he reduced barriers to the dumping of both cheap and unsafe toys and other products whose “true cost” has not been properly calculated or presented.
+ Middle class, professionals, and women are going bankrupt, along with skilled blue collar workers, because the balance of power among labor, business, and government is gone–business rules.
+ 53% of Americans favor unionization.
+ Reagan's dismissal of the air traffic controllers was the signal act that destroyed decades of labor progress, and unleashed illegal, unethical, and unconscionable business repression of unions.
+ Service jobs are difficult to unionize because of high turnover, transient elements, low pay, high proportion of immigrants that can be intimidates, PLUS a lack of government penalties against business violators.
+ The above, combined with the government's enthusiastic support for exporting jobs, and poor labor leadership, have creating a sucking chest wound in the American economy. It could yet be fatal.
+ The author excels at recounting labor successes that have not been covered by the mainstream media, and he manages to do this in a way that is inspiring, objective, and not at all preachy or pontifical.
+ I am deeply moved by his account of how the IAFF, two lights down from my own office, used five methods to win Iowa for John Kerry:
– Turned out the residents (each bringing five citizens to caucuses)
– Used local presence EVERYWHERE to carry caucuses ignored by the other candidates
– Able to use local knowledge to recruit those whose candidates failed to pass the viability test
– Never gave up in darkest of times
– High public credibility and visibility
+ I am reminded that “Change to Win” started in 2005, John Kerry and his boffo haircut just could not communicate the need properly.
+ The author explains how Kerry earned fire fighter love and respect in his turning around mid-way to Asia to come back to a major fire that killed numerous fire fighters in his state, and then worked aggressively to pass fire fighter equipment and safety laws.
+ There is no other union that has a firehouse, fire trucks, uniformed personnel that are unarmed, and is able to sponsor chili feeds at the firehouses while handing out leaflets in uniform on every street corner, doing retail politics to all non-union voters.
+ Having set the stage with successes, the author then moves into a very important middle ground in which he anticipates the continued decline of labor (and of the American economy) unless labor can reassert its influence on the national agenda.
+ He is critical of labor for focusing only on “get out the vote” and not on putting its issues–all of which have moral authority–into the national dialog.
+ He points out that labor spent close to $100 million in the 2004 election across 32 states, and was a key factor in the democrats taking back both Houses of Congress.
+ He is forceful in discussing how the Republicans have made “cultural values” a smokescreen within which individuals vote for candidates that are inherently bad for the public wallet and public benefits. I have a note, “religion and ‘values' have trumped facts and consequences.”
+ He damns both parties: the Republicans for trying to eliminate minimum wage rights in the aftermath of Katrina, and the Democrats for taking labor for granted.
+ He says that the debate has not taken place regarding:
– deindustrialization of America
– dumping of unsafe and cheap products into our marketplace
– local impact of globalization (and of course Wal-Mart as a cancer)
– toll on families of reduced benefits
+ He is articulate in pointing out that labor must work at two levels:
– at a national level, constant forceful attention to legislation, regulation, and the filling of oversight posts
– locally on compliance and alerts
+ The author slams the Democrats for barely winning on the basis of Republican mistakes, while being completely lacking in any strategy, message, or coherent program of their own.
+ He is devastatingly effective in evaluating the failure of labor leaders to communicate to the public that wages are at the lowest point in history as a percentage of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) while profits are at the highest point ever in history as a percentage of the GDP.
+ He is eloquent in pointing out that most Americans have forgotten (or never learned) that strong labor equates to the greatest prosperity for the greatest number.
+ He recommends these two books as antecedent works:
Hostile Takeover: How Big Money and Corruption Conquered Our Government–And How We Take It Back
What's the Matter with Kansas? : How Conservatives Won the Heart of America
I would add The Working Poor: Invisible in America and Off the Books: The Underground Economy of the Urban Poor
+ He documents how labor has failed to impact on trade agreements, the migrations of good jobs with benefits to overseas sweatshops, and the loss of entire segments of community economics.
+ The author describes a wide range of illegal and unethical business practices that repress unionization, while also describing the ineptness of the government, with the National Labor Review Board taking an average of 889 days to make a ruling–that is almost three years and in my mind is an ATROCITY.
+ Illegal firings that we know of amounted to 31,358 in 2005. Business enjoys a “culture of impunity” fueled by loopholes, ease of long delays, and feeble enforcement.
+ Labor hurt itself with its own repression in earlier decades of dissent, and its compulsion to demand strict obedience for a unified front (at the same time that businesses had similar practices)
+ The author believes that the country hungers for a renaissance of labor and its community-oriented values and benefits. I hope so, but right now, not a single candidate has a clue how to jump into this with both feet, a heart, and a brain.
+ I am totally inspired by this author, and have a note to myself: firefighters, cops, teachers, ambulance drivers and nurses: public servants driving public policy and benefits.
+ The author is sympathetic but very critical of labor's refusal to engage with most journalists, and he provides a superb overview of how badly labor deals with media and how badly media ignores labor issues that are fundamental.
+ He is most impressive in giving modern labor a relatively clean “bill of health” with most mafia connections and most strong-arm bosses now giving way to the empowerment of individual union members, open elections, and greater accountability.
+ He calls on labor to humanize, regionalize, and think big.
+ Labor should tell the story of its role in East European democratization and carry that creative role to the Second World.
+ Labor should compare and publicize the grotesque profits and compensation packages of industry, with those of the workers on whose backs those profits are unjustly earned.
I put this book down with a sense of wonder, a hard-eyed sense of the possibilities, and a very strong conviction that this author and this book have nailed the future of America as a Republic: Labor can be the king-maker at the national and state levels in 2008, and I pray that Labor will first learn the difference between transpartisan and bi-partisan (code for preserving the two party spoils system, something both McCain and Clinton absolutely want).
In that vein, I imagined a month national “open house” across police stations, fire stations, hospitals, and schools, in which Video-Teleconferencing was used to sponsor a national town-hall meeting to consider the ten threats and twelve policies, to elect a People's Cabinet, and perhaps funded by the Peter G. Peterson Foundation under the leadership of David Walker (former Comptroller General who told Congress USA is insolvent and quit when they would not act responsibly), a Public Budget Office capable of producing a balanced budget by 4 July 2008, and demanding that each candidate do the same (both appoint a Cabinet and produce a balanced budget for online examination before November 2008).
The author, in my opinion, is long overdue for recognition and promotion as the voice of labor, serving a new virtual Labor Congress that sets aside the fiefdoms and irrationality of the labor archipelago, and speaks to America with one voice and one practical agenda to restore America the Beautiful.
See also:
Society's Breakthrough!: Releasing Essential Wisdom and Virtue in All the People
Collective Intelligence: Creating a Prosperous World at Peace
Review: The Nine Nations of North America
5 Star, Atlases & State of the World, Complexity & Catastrophe, Country/Regional, Democracy, Future, Geography & Mapping, Nature, Diet, Memetics, Design, Secession & Nullification 
Merits Reprinting and Slight Updating, March 20, 2008
Joel Garreau
I thought I had reviewed this long ago, but evidently not. It is still very relevant to understanding and nurturing America today, and I would be very glad to see the publisher commission a slight update and then reprint this superb work.
As America strives to migrate from a disasterous and nearly fatal two-party spoils system and an Executive that is both corrupt and delusional, those who seek to lead America into a brighter future need to understand America in a new and more nuanced way. It is not about left or right. This book has been on continuing value to me as a point of reference, and I recommend it very highly in its existing state, more so if renewed.
The nine nations, each unique, are:
1. The empty quarter (which global warming will open up)
2. Quebec
3. Ecotopia (a model for the rest of us)
4. The breadbasket (which wastes water on excess foot and grows corn for fuel and cattle that is inedible and wastes more water)
5. New England
6. The Foundry (mid-Atlantic coast)
7. Dixie
8. MexAmerica
9. The Islands (of the Caribbean, where Cuban sugar cane sap could power 30-35 million cars, while Cuban health care would inform our own).
This book is one of my top eleven essential references for understanding America and the Americas. Here are the other ten:
The American Mind: An Interpretation of American Thought and Character Since the 1880's
What Kind of Nation: Thomas Jefferson, John Marshall, and the Epic Struggle to Create a United States
The Clustering of America
Losing America: Confronting a Reckless and Arrogant Presidency
The Cultural Creatives: How 50 Million People Are Changing the World
The Tao of Democracy: Using Co-Intelligence to Create a World That Works for All
Imagine: What America Could Be in the 21st Century
The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom
Revolutionary Wealth: How it will be created and how it will change our lives
Collective Intelligence: Creating a Prosperous World at Peace
Review: The Pirate’s Dilemma–How Youth Culture Is Reinventing Capitalism
6 Star Top 10%, Capitalism (Good & Bad), Complexity & Resilience, Culture, DVD - Light, Education (General), Future, Intelligence (Collective & Quantum), Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution 
Beyond Five Stars–Moving, Relevant, Powerful
March 1, 2008
Matt Mason
I read a lot. Non-fiction. This is one of the most important and inspiring books I have read in some time. It is especially meaningful to me because my oldest of three sons is a pirate who refuses to waste my money on college “credentialing” and has told me point blank there is nothing he cannot learn on his own.
While I have been totally “open” since I published E3i in the Whole Earth Review (Fall 1992) and was called a lunatic by the spy world, and I have given a Gnomedex keytone on “Open Everything,” this book–I am shaking my head trying to find the right words–has been an inspiration to me.
Bottom line: the pyramidal structure, the Weberian bureaucracy model that characterizes all governments and corporations, is DEAD. The circule model, the open network model, is kicking serious butt.
This author has in my view demonstrated world-class scholarship, given us gifted writing, and developed a story line that I can only call DAZZELING. This is an important story we all need to understand.
Here are my flyleaf notes:
+ Pirates are rocking the boat.
+ Information Age has hit puberty.”
+ Citing Mark Ecko, a graffiti artist whose brand is now worth $1 billion: “The pirate has become the producer.”
+ Punk capitalism.”
+ Punk Plus equals creative destruction at hurricane force.
+ Purpose is everything.
+ Citing Shane Smith: In America there is no anti-status quo media–it's all the same four big companies…there is no voice.
+ Punk and green are converging on substance and style.
+ Citing Richard Florida, “Rise of the creative class”
+ 3d printing is here now, 3d product download is on the horizon (I envision FedEx Kinko's as a “one of” production facility, but the dumb ass at FedEx CEO blew me off when I proposed that he print books to lower their carbon footprint).
+ USA was founded on the basis of piracy of European technologies.
+ Three core punk ideas are 1) do it yourself; 2) resist authority; 3) combine altruism with self-interest.
+ Canal Street moves faster than Wall Street.”
+ Pirate radio as musical petri dishes creating new spaces.
+ “Today a new generation is demanding more choice.”
+ Net neutrality matters (FYI, Google has a programmable search engine that will let you see only what others pay to let you see. Google is now totally EVIL.
+ Lawsuits are a sign of corporate wekaness.
+ Monsanto is totally evil, and these morons have filed patents claiming they own all the pigs on the planet. Hard to believe. Time to close them down.
+ INSIGHT HALFWAY THROUGH THE BOOK: Punk and integral consciousness, pirates and creative commons, are converging.
+ 3 pirate hyabits: 1) look outside the market; 2) create a vehicle; 3) harness your audience.
+ Remix is HUGE.
+ Graffiti is explained brilliantly by this author.
+ Open Source is going physical, e.g. open source beer.
+ File sharing boosts sales and extends range of for-sale music.
+ Free education online (and my own idea, one cell call at a time) is the ultimate positive sharing experience.
+ 1.5 billion youth around the world waiting to explode in creativity or destruction–I ask myself, what are we doing to help them go creative?
+ Four pillar s of community: 1) Altruism, 2) Reputation; 3) Experience; 4) Pay them (revenue sharing with customers).
+ Authenticity is huge.
+ Weaker boundaries = stronger foundations.”
+ Hip hop as “sustainable sell-out,” a “powerful form of collective action.”
+UN Secretary Gen3eral Kofi Annan recognized hip hop as an international language.
+ Flash mobs
+ Create a virus and feed it: 1) Audeince makes the rules, 2) Avoid limelight, speak only to the audience; 3) Feed the virus; 4) Let it die.
Conclusion: our youth have a new world view, empowered by global information technology, and they are the pinnacle of incredibly efficient networks.
I am just totally blown away by this book. The author has written a manifesto of enormous import.
See also:
Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution
Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind from the Big Bang to the 21st Century
The Tao of Democracy: Using Co-Intelligence to Create a World That Works for All
The World Cafe: Shaping Our Futures Through Conversations That Matter
Society's Breakthrough!: Releasing Essential Wisdom and Virtue in All the People
One from Many: VISA and the Rise of Chaordic Organization
Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations
Collective Intelligence: Creating a Prosperous World at Peace
The Big Switch: Rewiring the World, from Edison to Google
Access Denied: The Practice and Policy of Global Internet Filtering (Information Revolution and Global Politics)
I have a number of books on Amazon, should you wish to know more, I would be glad to have you examine them.
